David Woolley wrote:
> The original specifications defined various link types.
HTML 2.0 http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/html/rfc1866.txt only mentions
<LINK>, but does not define the types (5.2.4)
HTML 3.2 *proposes* some types http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#link
HTML 4.0 and 4.01 list recognised link types
(http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/types.html#h-6.12 and
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-links respectively) but
already mention profiles, rightly recognising that it would be near
impossible to define a set of link types to cover any and all situations
possible.
Unless I'm misinterpreting the XHTML 2.0 spec (and I openly admit to not
having looked at it in any detail yet),
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-metaAttributes.html#adef_metaAttributes_rel
indicates that you can use the listed default types, or define your own
in a profile. Yes, at this stage it does say "hypothetical", but even
the XHTML 2.0 spec itself is still in draft format...
> These were reduced
I still see the same ones in XHTML 2.0 that were originally listed in
HTML 3.2 and 4.0/4.01
> and then banished to hypthetical profiles.
Again, I would argue profiles are the way to go, as they offer an
extensible way to add very specific link types, rather than trying to
tie down the spec too much in attempting to cover all possible present
and future scenarios ... a bit like the eXtensible nature of X
technologies and their DTDs/Schemas.
> My impression is that META elements were invented in order to allow
> MS Word to store its metainformation in Word generated HTML without
> having to think about ways of using the existing constructs. In particular,
> the hyperlinking <link rev=made...> became the non-hyperlinking
> <meta name="author"....>
Hmm...impressions can be deceiving ;)
Not sure on dates here....META makes its appearance in the 2.0 spec, and
possibly before (incidentally, where can one find the original 1.0
spec?). Was Word already saving documents in HTML at the time?
From "The META Tag of HTML"
http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/html/draft-musella-html-metatag-01.txt
section 2
"The META element is used within the HEAD element to embed documents
meta-information not defined by other HTML elements. Such information
can be extracted by servers/clients for use in identifying, indexing
and cataloging specialized document meta-information."
Moreover: not every piece of meta information can be hyperlinked...what
if the author has no relevant web page / document?
--
Patrick H. Lauke
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